Erosion
by yumenoshima
Summary: Tetsuo and Kaneda get called to the carpet at the orphanage.


"She said it's gonna be two points.''

As Kaneda emerged from the classroom the cut on his mouth was beginning to crust over. He sucked on his lower lip and wiped it with the back of his wrist.

"You mean we're in the red?" Tetsuo fought the urge to begin crying again. He wiped away a nascent tear and knitted his brow in pain. The skin around his left eye stung and the swelling encroached into his field of vision.

When Tetsuo's turn with Ms. Inoue was over he'd gone out to the hallway to wait for Kaneda instead of directly to his room as he was told. He'd lowered himself to his haunches and picked at the Band-aid on his scabbed knee. A passing teacher had told him that squatting made him look like "a real delinquent".

"'Thin ice'," Kaneda parroted nasally as he pulled his friend to his feet.

Two points had been deducted from the boys' Psycho-Social Development progress-tracking card. The boys were almost always borderline, but this time they'd really done it. The latest infraction meant they were in the "red zone" and lost recess privileges until the points fell off. One more point meant they'd be barred from enrichment for the rest of the semester. Actions had consequences, said Ms. Inoue. There'd be zero tolerance, no matter who started it.

"No more soccer?"  
"Not if we don't mind ourselves."  
"We'll never make it. My life is a big black storm cloud full of problems."  
"It's not that bad. We just gotta watch our backs for the next couple weeks."

Tetsuo began to consider whether District 6 Inner City Youth Soccer was worth two weeks of lying low and sucking up. He wasn't into the sport. He'd only signed up because of Kaneda. Then again, he'd never been on a team before and dreaded the thought of being kicked out. With a little more practice he could get the hang of it, but if sidelined he knew he'd never catch up with the others.

Kaneda didn't shine on the field, but the kid who was an expert at coming down with a cough always got better in time for Saturday morning practice. Streetlights and towers still flooded the sky with the dim red glow of never-night but Kaneda would rise and dribble from the cloakroom to the cafeteria in his worn cleats. There were no glimmering trophies in his room but there were gold stars hovering over the days of games, practices, and fundraisers. Of all the adults in the system who conveyed the boy through the machinery of state child rearing like an unfinished product, Coach R. was the only one Kaneda hated to disappoint.

"You don't wanna be friends with me anymore, do you."  
"What? No! Why? That's stupid. What are you saying that for?"  
"Because they only want to mess with me. They just dragged you into it because of me. If I wasn't around they'd leave you alone and you wouldn't have a red sticker and you could keep on playing. If you ditched me."  
"Those guys made it my business and telling you to get lost wouldn't fix it now."  
"That's what I'd do if I were you."  
"No you wouldn't. You'd stick up for your brother."  
"You'd say that but you still think I'm trouble. Admit it. Like I'm an idiot little brother playing in traffic."  
Kaneda's cheeks flushed as if he were angry and Tetsuo realized he'd said the wrong thing.  
"I didn't mean it like that," he said meekly.  
Kaneda shook it off and smiled.  
"If you got kicked out what happens next is I walk up to the coach and tell him I quit."  
"Really?"  
"Yeah, 'cause then it'd stop being fun."  
The hall echoed with the tinny chirp of a digital bird. Kaneda noted the sound with breezy surprise. "We missed dinner, didn't we? Mean ol' cooze. She kept us past the dinner bell."  
Tetsuo laughed. Kaneda had been hanging out with the big kids.  
"Whatever. I've got a bag of M&M's back in my room. Come on, I'll split 'em with you. But I get the red ones."

They walked together and the hall was empty but for the two of them. Tetsuo's tears had dried and a bleary, peaceful emptiness had settled in. The setting sun came in through the west-facing windows. The dingy Kelly green tile walls, kids' tacked up pictures, the two of them - all lit up in gold. A utility closet was open and a plump janitor hummed along to the radio perched on her cart, the music washing over them. All was well. Tetsuo was bruised, hungry and in trouble, but none of that mattered in this hallway. He wanted to walk through it forever.

It would be a few years still before Tetsuo could correlate life events into a story. The story of his wretchedness would become the primary one, retold in action and memory. Injustices remained fresh and acute from daily rehearsal. Memories that didn't support the false biography would fall into neglect, their contents struck from the record until all that remained were faded outlines. Kindnesses would recede, never again to be recalled. This memory would lose its clarity and erode like tracks left by a long-disappeared animal, until it too became extinct.


End file.
